AI Research Scientist (Portugal-based Remote/Hybrid)

Sword Health is on a mission to free two billion people from pain. 

With 67% of members achieving a pain-free life and a 70% reduction in surgery intent, at Sword, we are using AI Care to change lives, and save millions for our 25,000+ enterprise clients across three continents. Today, we hold the majority of industry patents, win 70% of competitive evaluations, and have raised more than $300 million from top venture firms like Founders Fund, Sapphire Ventures, General Catalyst, and Khosla Ventures.

Recognized as a Forbes Best Startup Employer in 2025, this award highlights our focus on being a destination for the best and brightest  talent. Not only have we experienced unprecedented growth since our market debut in 2020,  but we’ve also created a remarkable mission and value-driven environment that is loved by our growing team. With a recent valuation of $4 billion, we are in a phase of hyper growth and expansion, and we’re looking for individuals with passion, commitment, and energy to help us scale our global impact. 

Joining Sword means committing to a set of core values, chief amongst them to “do it for the patients” every day, and to always “deliver more than expected” on behalf of our members and clients.

This is an opportunity for you to make a significant difference on a massive scale as you work alongside 1000+ (and growing!) talented colleagues, spanning three continents. Your charge? To help us build a pain-free world, powered by AI, enhanced by people — accessible to all.

At Sword Health, our AI Research team is at the heart of our mission to free two billion people from pain. We build and fine-tune foundational AI models across multiple modalities (e.g., text, vision, and speech) to create a deeply personalized and effective care experience for our members. Our work spans the full research lifecycle, from collecting, generating and annotating data to designing and running experiments and thoroughly testing our models. As an AI Researcher, you won't just be advancing the state-of-the-art; you'll be building the core intelligence that powers our platform and directly helps people live healthier, pain-free lives. We have got all the computing power, data, and talent you need to do your best work.

What you'll be doing:

• Contribute to the entire development cycle of our cutting-edge large deep learning models;
• Prepare datasets, design architectures, implement solutions, train and evaluate models to improve our products;
• Collaborate across engineering and clinical teams to translate cutting-edge AI research into practical applications that have clinical implications;
• Work towards long-term ambitious research goals based on developing novel solutions, while identifying immediate milestones;
• Turning novel research ideas into working code;
• Influence progress of relevant research communities by producing publications.

What you need to have:

• A PhD, or be currently enrolled in a PhD program and obtaining the degree prior to the start of employment, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a highly technical field;
• A track record of research publications in peer-reviewed academic conferences or journals;
• Proficiency in Python and experience with common machine learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow);
• Demonstrated ability to design experiments, and analyze and interpret their results;
• Must have or be able to obtain work authorization in Portugal.

What we would love to see:

• A strong research background and first-author publications in top-tier AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, COLM, ACL, EMNLP);
• Deep expertise in one or more of the following areas: Large Language Models (LLMs), multimodal learning (vision, speech), deep learning, or reinforcement learning (RL);
• Alternatively, a proven track record of exceptional research contributions in another highly quantitative field (e.g., Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computational Statistics), coupled with a strong passion to apply your skills to AI for healthcare;
• Industry experience taken during or after the PhD. e.g., Research Internships;
• Experience taking research ideas from conception to implementation, including developing and debugging complex systems;
• Strong communication skills and a history of effective collaboration on research projects;
• A broader record of research excellence, demonstrated through grants, fellowships, patents, impactful open-source contributions, or relevant internships.

To ensure you feel good solving a big Human problem, we offer:

• A stimulating, fast-paced environment with lots of room for creativity;
• A bright future at a promising high-tech startup company;
• Career development and growth, with a competitive salary;
• The opportunity to work with a talented team and to add real value to an innovative solution with the potential to change the future of healthcare;
• A flexible environment where you can control your hours (remotely) with unlimited vacation;
• Access to our health and well-being program (digital therapist sessions);
• Remote or Hybrid work policy: We have offices in Porto and Lisbon, so if you want to have face-to-face contact you can always work from there.

Total compensation range

€71,000 - €111,000 a year

This range includes base, variable and equity.

These compensation bands are just the starting point. Once someone joins and proves they’re outlier talent, we adjust quickly to ensure their compensation aligns with their impact.

Our job titles may span more than one career level. Actual pay is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, location, market demand, and other factors. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base salary and any potential variable, bonus or sales incentives, and the Company’s estimation of the value of private company stock options, if applicable. The pay range is subject to change, future value of company stock options is not guaranteed, and compensation may be modified in the future. In addition to our total compensation, Sword offers a number of benefits as listed below.